Joys of the Internet (no, not porn)

This post has nothing directly to do with karate or fitness.

I've written about this before, but I may have new readers, and I wanted to revisit this point for reasons that should eventually become clear.

I'm almost forty years old.  That means I grew up, and did the bulk of my early training, before the internet was a viable means of sharing information.  The only ways I had to contact or learn from other martial artists were to:

1. Train with them regularly.
2. Actually go and visit their schools (which I could only know about through word of mouth or a phone book.)
3. Read about them in a martial arts magazine, like Black Belt.
4. Buy a book or videotape - with pretty much no access to meaningful reviews (this was in the days before Amazon).

If some brilliant karateka living in New Zealand or South Africa or even the next town over had some brilliant insights into technique or self defense or whatever, I'd have no way to know that.  If he published a book about his thoughts, I'd have almost no way to pick his book out from the others on the shelves at the local Waldenbooks (remember Waldenbooks?)  Even with the book, I'd have no way to see his work in action - no YouTube at that time.

My life changed inexorably when I first stumbled on www.leanandhungryfitness.com back in 2005-ish.  I was at work, with a half hour to kill, and on a whim I Googled fitness and came up with that blog.  I read about Tabatas, dynamic stretching, and was off to the races... figuratively.

The things is that the internet allows people with valuable things to say a forum to publish their thoughts, for free, in a way that allows people all over the world can share them.  It also allows people with nothing of value to say to do the same thing!  If your ability to distinguish the latter from the former is strong enough then you wind up with an astounding set of resources at little to no cost.  

I remember discovering Art de Vany's blog (back when it was free... no link, sorry) and reading through his entire archive over the course of a week.  It took a year for it to all sink in, but now I'm blogging about his diet.  

I hope somebody someday reads a post of mine and settles down for a long night of archive searching, finding gems in there somewhere that he or she can use in training.

Last week I stumbled across a fantastic blog about karate.  The author is an experienced karateka who has put a ton of thought into issues regarding proper technique, self defense, and all sorts of other things I know nothing about.  Is he right about everything?  I'm not sure - I'm not necessarily arguing that he is.  But most of it seems right to me, and the writing and videos are just fantastic.  I started reading some random posts, and am now working my way up in chronological order.  Seriously, go there and take a look.

My point... if I can be said to have a point... is that if you spend some time looking around the internet you might find some serious gems.  I suggest that everybody who has an interest (in anything) spend a couple of horus a week trying out new blogs, new sites, and generally wandering around the wonderful world of free information.

If you're reading this there's a good chance you're already on board with this idea.  Make sure to follow links inside blog posts you like.  If you find a decent blog, check out the blog roll - people with good things to say generally link to other people with good things to say, and I've found 90% of the quality stuff that I read through this method. 

So close your game of solitaire (or Bejeweled or Tetris or whatever) and do some surfing.  Start with Dan Djurdjevic's blog - it's awesome.  You will absolutely learn something or at least have your own knowledge challenged.  And go on from there.   Don't forget to thank Al Gore for inventing the internet while you're at it.

Osu.